The Restless Dead

17

I got the call from Lundy just before lunchtime. I’d spent the morning rinsing the disarticulated skeleton from the Barrows, which had been simmering in detergent solution overnight. Even though the bones had been inside a fume cupboard the air still smelled disconcertingly of beef stew. The next step would be to reassemble them, a time-consuming process that involved laying out all two hundred and six individual bones in the correct anatomical position, until the full skeleton was re-formed. That would take even longer here, with the cranium shattered by the shotgun blast. So, since Clarke was impatient for information, I’d been examining the surfaces of certain key bones as I’d removed them from the pans. I hoped to be able to give her at least a preliminary summary by the end of the day.

Lan tapped on the examination room door as I was rinsing off the pelvis. ‘Detective Inspector Lundy’s on the phone, Dr Hunter.’

I’d left my own phone in the locker with the rest of my things, not wanting to take it into the examination room while I was working. Putting the pelvis on to a stainless-steel tray, I stripped off my gloves and went to take the call.

‘How soon can you be at Leo Villiers’ house?’ Lundy said, without preamble.

‘How soon do you need me?’

‘Now would be good.’

Clarke hadn’t wasted any time in obtaining a warrant. Once it was known that the body found in Villiers’ clothes wasn’t him, there was ample justification for a full search of his property. First thing that morning, the police had arrived at the big house on the mouth of the estuary, and a cadaver dog had found what looked very much like a grave hidden away in a secluded part of the grounds.

‘Something’s obviously been buried there,’ Lundy said. ‘The dog gave a positive response, and you can clearly see the outline of the hole. There’s been a half-arsed attempt to replace the turf, but the soil hasn’t had a chance to settle, and there’s a clear mound. We’ve started excavating, but we’d like you out here when we find anything.’

By the sound of it the grave was relatively recent. It could take years for a buried body to rot away enough for the displaced soil above it to settle and sink level with the surrounding ground, but a lot less time for grass and vegetation to grow back. There was often still a visible difference, not least because plants fed on the nutrients released by the body into the earth. But if the replaced sod showed no sign of growth, then that suggested the grave had been dug sometime over the winter, after the last growing season had ended.

I glanced towards the examination room where the cleaned bones of the skeleton were waiting. I’d only taken around half of them out of the solution, but it wouldn’t hurt the rest to stay where they were for a while longer.

‘Give me an hour,’ I told him.

A young PC stood in front of the gateway to the private road at Willets Point, making me wait until he’d called in to check before letting me through. The road ran along the promontory, passing through woods before the trees gave way to landscaped lawns. Someone had been maintaining them, because the grass looked newly mown, probably the first cut of the spring. Specimen trees dotted the lawn; redwoods, cedars and others I didn’t recognize, while a beautiful magnolia tree was close to flowering, cream-tipped buds bursting from its branches like candles.

The road curved around a thicket of rhododendrons, and hidden away behind them was Leo Villiers’ house. If ‘house’ was the right word: it wasn’t quite a mansion, but the Victorian building was still imposing enough. The drive approached the house from the rear, and beyond it I had a clear view of the estuary and open sea. It was a lovely spot, marred now by the jumble of police vehicles parked outside.

I saw Lundy waiting as I pulled up. The DI strolled over, looking at his watch as I climbed out.

‘Dr Hunter. You made good time.’

‘There weren’t any causeways on this side.’

He chuckled. ‘There is that. Protective gear’s over here. We can talk while you’re getting ready.’

We went over to a trailer containing disposable coveralls and the other paraphernalia that were integral to any police crime scene.

‘Is Clarke here?’ I asked, selecting what I needed.

‘She was, but she was called away. Sorry to interrupt what you’re doing at the mortuary, but we’d rather have you here for the excavation.’

I sat down on the open rear of the police truck to pull on a pair of white coveralls. ‘Any sign of what’s in there?’

‘Not so far, but they’ve not gone very deep.’

‘What about the house?’

‘Funnily enough, it looks as though somebody’s been doing some tidying up.’ His tone was jocular, but his eyes weren’t amused. ‘The place had been cleaned when Villiers went missing; we saw that much before the lawyers booted us out. But this is more recent. It’s not just been wiped down; the whole house stinks of bleach. Someone’s really gone to town.’

I paused to look at him, a plastic overshoe half on my foot. ‘If it had already been cleaned after Villiers disappeared, why do it again now?’

‘Why indeed?’ Lundy gave a wry smile. ‘No law against it, but the place is supposed to have been shut up since he went missing. His normal cleaner was laid off, but somebody’s obviously been in. Recently, too. If I were a cynical type I’d say someone anticipated we’d be out to search the house once we found the body in the estuary, and decided not to leave anything to chance.’

‘Sir Stephen?’ I asked, lowering my voice as I zipped up my coveralls.

‘I think that’s more likely than Leo popping back to do his own spring cleaning.’ Lundy looked back at the house. ‘I doubt Sir Stephen got the mops out personally, but it’s a safe bet it was done on his instructions.’

I tore the plastic wrapper off a new mask and pulled on a pair of gloves. ‘Do you think he knew the body wasn’t his son’s?’

‘I think he knows more than he’s saying. As to what that is, your guess is as good as mine.’ Lundy beckoned with his head. ‘Come on, the grave’s round the front.’

The cry of gulls accompanied us as we followed a stone-flagged path around the house. It faced out over the mouth of the estuary, with only a sloping lawn and wooden jetty separating it from the open water. A little dinghy with an outboard motor was moored at one end of the dock, where the water was still deep enough for it to float. The low tide had exposed rock pools and a little crescent of sandy beach, but in bad weather the waves must break right over the jetty. The wind blew straight off the sea, strong enough even today to tug at my baggy coveralls. The only thing visible between here and the distant horizon was the sea fort. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile out, its three ungainly towers standing in the waves like rotting derricks.

I was surprised Villiers hadn’t had it torn down for spoiling his view.

Large bay windows stood either side of a porticoed front entrance. Instead of individual panes sitting inside timber or stone frames, the glass itself was rounded, an impressive piece of craftsmanship that gave the windows the slightly magnifying curvature of a goldfish bowl. Through them I could see the ghostly white figures of the police forensic team moving silently inside.

‘Used to be the family’s summer residence,’ Lundy told me as we walked across the lawn towards a clump of rhododendron bushes. ‘It was shuttered up for years until Leo decided he was going to move in. Course, the first thing he decided to do was rip half of it out and “modernize” it. You should see inside. Like something from a magazine.’

‘Is that what Trask and Emma Derby worked on?’

He nodded. ‘It’d have saved everybody a lot of grief if they’d turned the job down. Right, here we go.’

He stopped a few yards from where a group of CSIs in soil-caked coveralls knelt around a rectangular hole next to the bushes, scraping at the earth with trowels. Under a grid of orange string, the hole was perhaps four feet long and three wide, and about eighteen inches deep. It looked small for an adult’s grave, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t. I’d encountered more than one murder where the killer had bent their victim double to bury them, indiscriminately snapping bones and tearing joints in the process.

‘Any luck?’ Lundy asked.

One of the CSIs broke off to answer. ‘Not yet, but I don’t think we’ve far to go. We’re close enough to smell something.’

The speaker was anonymous under the hooded coveralls and mask, but I recognized the voice from the creek. It was the big CSI who’d said the facial injuries to the body on the barbed wire had been caused by a boat propeller.

‘You remember Dr Hunter from the other day,’ Lundy told them. ‘He’s going to lend a hand.’

‘Hallelujah,’ the big CSI muttered, but he still shuffled to one side to make room for me.

I’d been doing this for too long to waste energy butting heads. I knelt down beside them. ‘The soil looks pretty soft. How long ago would you say it was dug?’

The big CSI sniffed under his mask. ‘A few months, tops. Probably less. The turf had been put back on top but it hadn’t had time to root properly. And there wasn’t—’

‘Got something.’

The atmosphere changed as another CSI spoke. Everyone watched as she scraped delicately at the soil with the point of her trowel. She peered at something protruding above the dark earth.

‘It’s some sort of fabric. Could be a coat.’

I glanced at Lundy. He raised his eyebrows but said nothing as more of the object emerged. A section of dark cloth was revealed, and with it came a noticeable smell of decomposition.

‘Something’s wrapped in it,’ the same female CSI said. ‘Hang on… Oh.’

‘What is it?’ Lundy asked, trying to peer past her into the grave.

‘Fur. It’s an animal,’ she said, sounding disappointed. ‘Looks like a dog.’

The tension was snuffed out as though a switch had been thrown. Lundy’s sigh could have been disappointment or relief. ‘Right, well, let’s have a look at the rest of it. And make sure there’s nothing hidden underneath. I’ve known some crafty buggers try to pull that before now.’

So had I. The DI motioned with his head for me to go over. Pulling off my mask, I went and stood with him a few paces away from the grave.

‘Villiers’ beagle,’ he said, looking back at the dirty coat of tan and white fur the CSIs were uncovering. ‘He had it put down just before he disappeared.’

I nodded, remembering him telling me that the vet had been the last person to see Leo Villiers. At least that we knew of.

‘He must have been fond of the dog if he buried it himself,’ I said. Most people let the vet dispose of their pet’s remains.

‘He’d had it since he was a teenager, by all accounts. The vet said he was “visibly distressed” when it was destroyed. Even she was surprised, but it seemed to fit in with the suicide theory. Final straw, sort of thing.’ Lundy looked back at the grave again, his moustache turning down in disapproval. ‘That’s one death he didn’t fake, at least.’

‘Do you want me to stick around until they’ve made sure there’s nothing else buried in there?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I think we’ve found all we’re going to. Sorry for the false alarm. You might as well get back to the mortuary. The sooner we know who we fished out of the estuary, the better idea we’ll have of what’s going on.’

I pulled off my gloves, careful not to strip the sticking plasters off with them. I’d got changed for nothing, but that was how it went sometimes. ‘Could it be someone else local?’

‘Not that we’re aware of. The only two people reported missing from round here are Emma Derby and Leo Villiers, and we know it’s neither of them.’

‘Whoever he was, he was probably still in his twenties,’ I said. ‘The hammertoes on the foot are misleading. Whatever caused them wasn’t age related. He was an adult, but from the condition of the bones I’ve seen so far I’d say he was almost certainly under thirty.’

I’d been deliberately selective in which bones I’d taken from the detergent, concentrating first on those I thought would yield the most information. The ends of the sternal ribs change with age and so does the auricular surface of the ilium on the pelvis, both becoming rougher and more porous over time. I’d found some coarsening but no porosity in any of the bones I’d seen, and while I’d still need to carry out a much more thorough examination, I was confident my estimate wasn’t far out.

‘A fair bit younger than Leo Villiers, then,’ Lundy said. ‘That helps, but have you got anything else? As things stand we don’t even know if who we’re looking for was white or black.’

I’d been trying to determine that myself, without much success. People are every bit as complicated in death as they are in life, and determining ancestry was notoriously tricky even in intact remains.

Skin colour can be misleading, and changes anyway once a body begins to decompose. Death is the great leveller, turning pale skin darker and vice versa. There are some skeletal characteristics that point to one genetic background or another, but even these can’t always be relied on.

These remains were a case in point. When everyone thought the body was that of Leo Villiers, the assumption was that it must be white. Now even that couldn’t be taken for granted. There was also another problem. Most ancestral characteristics are found in the skull, but the one belonging to the body recovered from the Barrows had been damaged by the shotgun blast. Not only was the mandible missing, but the upper jaw bone below the nasal cavity, which would once have housed the front teeth, had been broken off in a splintered arch. Only broken stumps of back molars and empty sockets remained, not enough for even a forensic dentist to help with.

‘What’s left of the nasal bridge doesn’t project very far, which suggests possible black or Asian ancestry,’ I told Lundy. ‘But the eye orbits are more angular than rectangular or rounded, which is more of a white characteristic.’

‘So he could be mixed race?’

‘Possibly. Or he might just have had distinctive facial features.’ I shrugged. ‘Sorry I can’t be more help.’

Lundy puffed out his cheeks. ‘Well, it gives us a bit more to go on. Although if he was mixed race…’

‘What?’ I prompted.

But he shook his head. ‘Just thinking out loud. Come on, I’ll see you back to your car.’

We’d only gone a few steps when Lundy’s phone rang. He stopped to answer it, and I saw his expression change.

‘Here now, you mean?’ Whatever was said at the other end didn’t reassure him. The heavy shoulders slumped. ‘Christ. OK, then.’

He put his phone away.

‘We’ve got company.’

Sir Stephen Villiers wasn’t on his own. There was no senior policeman with him this time, but to make up for it he was accompanied by three lawyers, two of them middle-aged men in expensive but conservative suits and the third a woman whose matt-black hair betrayed a bad attempt to dye it. All three walked slightly behind him in unconscious order of deference, the eldest lawyer just by his shoulder, with the other man and the woman each a half-step further back. As they advanced towards us over the lawn the effect was like watching a mother duck trailed by her brood. Albeit much more predatory.

I’d told Lundy I’d go back to the mortuary, expecting he’d want to speak to Leo Villiers’ father by himself. The DI nodded, distracted, but then called me back.

‘On second thoughts, Dr Hunter, can you stick around for a bit? If you don’t mind, it might help to have you here.’ He arranged his features into an affable smile as the group bore down on us. ‘Can I help you, Sir Stephen?’

‘Where’s your senior officer?’

The voice was like ice. Leo Villiers’ father was dressed as impeccably as before, a mid-grey cashmere coat over a darker grey suit. Everything about him was precise, from the closely trimmed fingernails to the parting in the slightly thinning hair. But the hair was already being ruffled by the stiff breeze blowing from the sea, and underneath the controlled demeanour was a sense of fury barely held in check.

‘Not here at the moment,’ Lundy told him. ‘Was she expecting you? If she knew you were coming, I’m sure she’d have—’

‘I want you off my property.’

Lundy’s eyebrows went up. ‘I was under the impression that this was your son’s house. Have I got that wrong?’

The most senior lawyer hurriedly cut in. ‘The house and its grounds are part of the Villiers estate. I suggest you leave straight away or you’ll be facing charges of harassment and illegal damage.’

‘Well, we wouldn’t want that,’ Lundy said equably. ‘We do have a warrant to search the property, though. I thought you’d seen it, but if you like I can—’

‘We don’t recognize the warrant’s validity. It’s been issued on entirely spurious grounds, for no other reason that I can see but to cause unnecessary emotional suffering to a bereaved father.’

The lawyer spoke with considerably more bluster than his employer, who continued to regard Lundy coldly. Lundy seemed unperturbed.

‘Well, I don’t know about “spurious”. I’d have thought finding a body with half its face blown away was grounds enough. What with it wearing Leo Villiers’ clothes and all.’ The DI raised his eyebrows at Sir Stephen. ‘You remember, the ones you identified?’

Sir Stephen stared at him. ‘Are you accusing me of lying?’

‘Perish the thought.’ From anyone else it might have sounded insincere. ‘We’re not disputing that the clothes were your son’s, just the body. As his father I’d have thought you’d be keen to find out what’s going on.’

‘There’s nothing to find. My son died in a tragic accident, and his body was discovered three days ago. I saw it for myself, and until now the police seemed convinced as well. Now I’m to believe your earlier assertions were wrong? That smacks of incompetence.’

‘No, it’s just allowing for new facts. Dr Hunter here’s a forensic anthropologist. He expressed doubts at the time that the body had been in the water long enough to be your son, as I believe DCI Clarke informed you. Now we’ve found more evidence that suggests it wasn’t.’

Sir Stephen’s head turned so the frosty eyes were fixed on me. All three of his lawyers did the same. Thanks, Lundy, I thought.

‘What evidence?’

I glanced at Lundy but he kept his expression bland. All right, then. ‘As far as we can tell, the right foot found in the creek belongs to the body from the estuary. But your son broke his foot playing rugby, so if this was his it would still have the healed breaks. It doesn’t. And if the foot isn’t his, the body can’t be either.’

Sir Stephen considered me. His expression didn’t quite change, but somehow his disdain was made plain. ‘You say this foot was found in the creek.’

‘Yes, that’s—’

‘So it wasn’t anywhere near where my son was found. It wasn’t even in the estuary.’

‘No, but—’

‘Then why would you think it was his? I assume there must be DNA evidence to support your theory?’

He knew full well there wasn’t: Clarke would have told him we were still waiting for the test results. ‘Not yet, but the measurements I took showed—’

‘Measurements.’ The word dripped with scorn. Sir Stephen turned back to Lundy. ‘And this is your evidence?’

‘Once we get the DNA results—’

‘I’m confident they’ll confirm my son is dead. But you don’t have them, do you? So all this…’ A hand gestured contemptuously at the house. ‘… is based on the opinion of a disgraced forensic expert with a reputation as a troublemaker.’

I wasn’t sure if I was stunned more by the insult or that he’d gone to the effort of finding out who I was. He’d barely seemed to notice me at the body recovery. Blood rushed to my face as I started to respond, but Lundy beat me to it.

‘Dr Hunter’s reputation isn’t the issue here, Sir Stephen. He didn’t invent your son’s broken foot, he just confirmed discrepancies between the remains and the X-rays you yourself provided. Of course, if you really want to move the identification along you could always let us see the rest of his medical records. That’d help no end.’

Lundy sounded as amiable as ever, but no one there could have been fooled. The senior lawyer hurried to fill the silence.

‘Sir Stephen has already made his position very clear. Medical records are, and should remain, private. In the interests of cooperation an exception was made for the X-rays, but—’

‘There is nothing in my son’s medical records that would help this investigation.’ Sir Stephen spoke over his lawyer as though the man weren’t there. ‘If you have grounds to believe otherwise, then please share them. If not then I’m sure there are more productive ways of spending police time than wasting it here. As I’ll be sure to mention to your superiors.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ Lundy said pleasantly. ‘In fact, here’s one of them now.’

DCI Clarke was hurrying across the lawn past the house, face set and mackintosh slapping around her legs. Lundy pursed his lips when he saw her expression.

‘You might as well head on back,’ he murmured to me as Sir Stephen and his entourage turned towards Clarke. ‘I’ll call you later.’

The DCI didn’t acknowledge me as we passed each other, but I wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries either. My face was still burning as I followed the path round to the rear of the house to where the cars were parked, still fuming over the run-in with Sir Stephen. Of all the smug, arrogant… Christ, what sort of man didn’t even bother to ask who the police thought the body might belong to?

Or why it had been found in his son’s clothes?

At the plastic bins set out for the used protective clothing, I yanked at the zipper on my coveralls so hard it jammed. I wrenched at it bad-temperedly, swearing under my breath when the paper fabric ripped.

‘Bad day at the office?’

I hadn’t noticed anyone nearby. The man who’d spoken was leaning against a sleek black Daimler, and it was more the car than his face that jogged my memory. Then I took in the pockmarked cheeks and recognized Sir Stephen’s driver from the oyster factory.

He was smoking again, a thin plume rising from the half-smoked cigarette he held by his side. From where he stood he had a good view of the path at the side of the house, and he flicked another glance towards it now.

‘You’re OK, they’re still talking,’ I said, still struggling with the partially zipped coveralls.

He smiled, giving a nod of acknowledgement as he took another drag on the cigarette. He looked older than I’d thought, definitely closer to fifty than forty. If he hadn’t been standing by the car again I doubt I’d have remembered him. Even with the acne scarring, he wasn’t the sort of man who would stand out in a crowd. His features were pleasant but nondescript, and the neatly trimmed hair was the sort of non-colour that lightened rather than greyed with age. Now I looked at him I saw a compactness about his slim build that belied his sedentary job, but it wasn’t immediately obvious. In his navy-blue suit — a durable synthetic blend — he could have been an accountant or a civil servant. He could have been anything.

‘Not another one, is it?’ he asked, lifting his chin towards the activity at the house.

‘Another what?’

He smiled, acknowledging the evasion. ‘A body. First the one in the estuary, then one yesterday. Seems like there’s quite a glut of them.’

‘If you say so.’

As far as I knew, the police hadn’t announced that a second body had been found. Word was bound to get out, but the remoteness of the Backwaters had worked better than any attempt to restrict publicity.

But Sir Stephen’s driver clearly knew something. He shrugged and took a drag of his cigarette. ‘Suit yourself. I’m not asking you to tell me anything, just saying what I’ve heard.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Well, if you’re not going to tell me why should I tell you?’

He smiled, as though we were sharing a private joke. But his eyes remained watchful and shrewd in their nest of laughter lines. He blew a stream of smoke off to one side, away from me.

‘Only kidding. All I know is another body turned up yesterday. One of the perks of a job like mine. People think you’re part of the furniture and forget you’ve got a pair of ears.’

So someone had told his employer, and he had overheard. I wondered if the information had come officially or courtesy of Sir Stephen’s friends in high places. I didn’t respond, busying myself shucking out of the ruined coveralls.

‘He’s never been any different.’

I looked up, not sure what that was supposed to mean. The driver took another pull on the cigarette.

‘The old man’s son,’ he said, smiling through the smoke. ‘Always was a wanker. Some people don’t know when they’re well off.’

I was saved from having to answer. I nodded towards the house as I wadded up the coveralls and dumped them in a bin.

‘I think your boss has finished.’

His head snapped round as Sir Stephen and his lawyers appeared from around the front of the house. Evidently the discussion with Clarke had been a short one. Without seeming to hurry, the driver came to attention, the cigarette vanishing as though by sleight of hand.

Not wanting anything more to do with any of them, I turned and walked away.